I saw your post at the Philstar website about verbal abuse by a boyfriend. I’m 29 years old and I have a 44-year-old American boyfriend. The first time I met him, he was the sweetest guy I knew. But as time went by, he changed. He became short-tempered and was often angry.

I am now engaged to him. The first time he came to the Philippines, he asked me to marry him. I didn’t say yes to him. I told him to take it slow. I told him I couldn’t go out of town with him. He got mad because of this. I got scared, but that time, I was still able to walk away from him.

When I walked away from him, he cried and begged me to forgive him, and I did. When he went back to the US, he became jealous of any man that would interact with me.

He yells at me, calls me names, demands that I answer his calls immediately, controls me by unfriending people he doesn’t like in social media, makes me regret I am late because of heavy traffic, says I lie even if I don’t, always threatens to leave me, and blames me for everything that goes wrong in his life. He is so angry that I am still friends with all my ex-boyfriends.

He met my family and was great with them, but they don’t know the real story of our relationship. I need help! UNE MISERABLE

DEAR UNE MISERABLE,

I tip my hat to you. You actually found a true-blooded lean, mean, abusive machine. He scores 100 points as an abuser.

There is a difference between an abusive person and an abuser. Abusive persons are those who sometimes hurt others because they cannot control their aggressive impulse at times. But most of the time, they can control their aggression and live intimately with others peacefully. There would be spurts of aggression, which slips out especially during stress. However, it can be controlled within a few seconds or minutes. Anyone you meet and everybody you know can be abusive, but they are not abusers.

Abusers, on the other hand, are people who hurt people close to them consistently. They have no remorse and think that their victims are the ones abusing them. They blame others for their problems. These people are mean and vicious. They consistently call their victims names. For example, they call their victims: whore, bitch, stupid, good-for-nothing, useless, liars, thieves, etc. They also use the private parts of people close to them to demean them. They may say, “...your brain is between your legs.”

They think that their loved ones/victims deserve to be punished, humiliated, ridiculed, and shamed. These people throw people out of their houses but will reel their victims back in so they can be punished again and thrown out of their houses again. In time, their victims feel so small that they are paralyzed into doing nothing about their lives.

These people also isolate their victims from other people. For example, they will see to it that others will hate their victims, tell their victims not to see their own family or friends, and will tell their victims that the abuser is the only person in their life that will accept them, making their victims think that they can’t go anywhere else.

You only have two options. You can suggest to your present boyfriend that he needs to find professional help. There is a possibility that he was traumatized by earlier relationships with others that makes him react to you the way he does. If he agrees, then he has a chance of changing. If he thinks what he is doing to you is right, then the second option is to leave him. However, if you think it is worth staying with him because he is the true love of your life, then be ready for the next stage of abuse. The first form of abuse is emotional and verbal abuse, which you have been experiencing so far. The second form of abuse is physical. When the abusers do not get satisfaction from abusing their victims emotionally and verbally, they will go to the next level of abuse. That is, physical abuse. Physically abusing can be yanking your hair, pushing you, tagging on your arm forcefully, slapping your face, hitting the back of your head, pinching, strangling, and kicking.

Choose well because it will determine if you will have a happy life or a miserable one. EPPY

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